For it appeared that his absence was quite
voluntary; he need not have gone--he would not have gone if he had
wanted to see her. She had a sickening sense that no lot could ever
be pleasant to her again if her Thursday night's vision was not to be
fulfilled; and in this moment of chill, bare, wintry disappointment and
doubt, she looked towards the possibility of being with Arthur again,
of meeting his loving glance, and hearing his soft words with that eager
yearning which one may call the "growing pain" of passion.
Chapter XIX
Adam on a Working Day
NOTWITHSTANDING Mr. Craig's prophecy, the dark-blue cloud dispersed
itself without having produced the threatened consequences. "The
weather"--as he observed the next morning--"the weather, you see, 's
a ticklish thing, an' a fool 'ull hit on't sometimes when a wise man
misses; that's why the almanecks get so much credit. It's one o' them
chancy things as fools thrive on."
This unreasonable behaviour of the weather, however, could displease no
one else in Hayslope besides Mr. Craig. All hands were to be out in
the meadows this morning as soon as the dew had risen; the wives and
daughters did double work in every farmhouse, that the maids might give
their help in tossing the hay; and when Adam was marching along the
lanes, with his basket of tools over his shoulder, he caught the sound
of jocose talk and ringing laughter from behind the hedges.
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